Ecclesiastes Chapter Seven, Better For The Soul

Ecclesiastes 7:3 Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better. [4] The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

The preacher is fond of employing the contrasting term of “better” in Ecclesiastes. Note once more, this does not mean genuinely good by any metric of measurement, simply better than what it is contrasted against. In this case, sorrow and laughter.

Sorrow, says he, is better or superior to laughter. Why? Sorrow is cathartic whereas laughter is heady. Laughter is a dopamine hit when one is already in a jovial state. Sorrow or grief in the wake of tragedy, loss or heartache cleanses the soul. Psalm 34:18 states, “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.” The Apostle Paul wrote on the topic of sorrow, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death,” 1 Corinthians 7:10. Sorrow brings one into a contemplative or thoughtful state, more open to considerations previously unheeded. In some instances, worldly sorrow results in death, as in Judas’ case when he betrayed Jesus and later hanged himself from grief and regret.

Psalm 34 expresses that God is near the broken hearted, and further, saves those with a contrite heart. Contrite is an adjective that defines a feeling or expression of remorse, affected by guilt. A telling synonym is guilt-ridden. This type of sorrow is godly as the person reflects upon life (theirs particularly) and as a result turns to the Lord for salvation. Such sorrow is not to be regretted. The cause of the sorrow may engender regret, but not its result.

Tears are a natural result of grief. Everyone occasionally has a good cry; yes, even men have a good cry sometimes. It may be rare, but tears are not always evil. Tears express what words cannot. Like the Holy Spirit who intercedes for the believer with words we cannot muster (see Romans 8:26), tears express emotions too deep and raw for us to convey adequately with words, no matter how eloquent or lengthy. Tears suggest brokenness; like a child who cries when they fall and hurt themselves, adults weep when the hurt is too deep to simply explain or explain away. For the saint, we have the great pleasure and privilege of being able to fall into the Father’s arms for comfort. It seems a strangely natural reaction to want to offer comfort to someone so grievously distressed. It might in fact speak something startling about a person’s character if they can stand utterly unfazed in the face of someone caught in the thrall of deep sorrow. The heart, or the seat of emotion in the person, is made better by sorrow. The heart could be seen in this context as the soul, the seat of human reason and emotion. Sorrow purges grief and perhaps equips us to experience it; it is a mechanism that allows humanity to process the deepest hardship and make it through. 

John records the amazing incident of Lazurus’ death, showing the readership that even our Lord, while on earth, suffered human sorrow, John 11:35, 38. He was so moved by the extreme grief that sin and death inflicted upon the people, the people He cared so much for and brought sharply into focus in that moment by Lazarus’ death and his sisters’ reaction that He too wept. In fact, John writes that He was “groaning in Himself.” He knew death and suffering as the Creator; now He experienced it as a Man.

The preacher states that the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning. He earlier wrote that it was better (that word again) to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting, Ecclesiastes 7:2. In verse 4 he calls the house of feasting the house of mirth. Mirth is simply defined as amusement, especially expressed in laughter. Amuse is a fascinating word. To muse means to think deeply about or contemplate a subject. The Greek prefix “a” means “not or without.” So amusement literally means the absence of contemplation or ponderance. The preacher describes as fools those who linger or enter the house of mirth. The wise see mortality, suffer its sorrow, and their hearts are made better, perhaps intimating an encounter with transcendental reality. In other words, coming to the Lord. Hurt by the sorrow death brings, the wounded person gets up from the ground and runs to their Father for comfort and safety. In the house of mirth, peopled by fools are avid fans of avoiding the reality death reveals daily; instead eager to indulge in any momentary diversion they can access to escape the consequences that thinking about life and mortality might invoke.